


skin belongs

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Childhood, Destiny, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fate & Destiny, First Kiss, Growing Up, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Other - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 20:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17250920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: He is royalty. Abandoned, forgotten, but destined to do great things. As his skin twists in pale chains about his brittle bones, the other in him explodes between his ribs and inside his lungs. He cannot make this world smell like home; like petals and spice, like summer rain and winter frost. But he can make it’s bright colors glitter the same. Bend the light so rainbows grace the thatch roof his mother makes him fix each summer.





	skin belongs

Merlin wakes in his cot and his skin is too tight. Already his mind is crowded, and though the sun has not yet risen, her light is too bright for his new eyes. He screws his face and puckers his lips, but he doesn't let the wail break past his teeth. It won’t be contained in his lungs though, and when the salty liquid burns down his cheeks, he puffs up his chest and shrieks.

It has the delightful reaction of summoning a woman. She is beautiful, in that strange way these creatures are. Her skin, wane and lightly lined, is grey and her tired eyes are blue. Not the glittering blue of his home, but a different, softer blue. He likes that blue, and he reaches out to touch the pools. 

The woman draws back, eyes wide and mouth a tense line. She knows, Merlin realizes. For the first time since he woke in a cot stuffed with hay, fear slithers under his skin, slimy and too-warm. There’s a strange relief in her though, one that he can taste like burnt sugar on the air. 

She prayed for this, he realizes. He wails, because that is what his body demands, but when she cradles him in her arms, when he inhales the scent of mother and peasant, he finds himself falling into the rocking motion. Her eyes soften, ever so slightly and the sob building in him, burning through him, drips away. 

He sleeps, and he doesn’t dream, but it’s okay.

 

\---

  
Growing is slow. His bones don’t stretch the way he expects. His skin oscillates between too tight and too loose, constantly tripping him up. His feet, obnoxious and long, and his hands, flappy obstructions at the end of his arms, do not belong to  _ him _ . 

His mother knows. He thinks those of his village do as well. That is why they slink to the outer edge, why his mother keeps him confined to the stone walls and the little wood-stake fence. She tells him he is  _ special _ . He thinks she has no idea.

He is royalty. Abandoned, forgotten, but destined to do great things. As his skin twists in pale chains about his brittle bones, the other in him explodes between his ribs and inside his lungs. He cannot make this world smell like home; like petals and spice, like summer rain and winter frost. But he can make its bright colors glitter the same. Bend the light so rainbows grace the thatch roof his mother makes him fix each summer. 

The colors here are so garish sometimes. The yellows cut his eyes and the reds make him itch and the blues, dear god the unholy blues. His mother has blue eyes, but they are faded and gentle. The rest of the blues scream at him, claw down his throat and demand his attention.

Sometimes he makes the skies grey just so he can think. 

Mother yells when he does this, when the old man from down the lane sees him and then clutches his chest.

She screams and she grabs him and she holds him so tightly he thinks he may never breathe again, but it's worth it when she strokes her fingers through his hair and makes him sweet honey cakes. 

_ You called me here with a cake just like this. _ She cries at the cadence of his voice, and so he is quiet.

 

\---

 

There’s a boy from his village who is wild and free in a way Merlin thinks he once was. His hair is earth freshly turned and he is exuberant in a way Merlin is not allowed to be. Loud, whooping down the dirt paths and stealing fruit from the orchards, he doesn’t fear Merlin like so many others do. He simply pulls at his ears,  _ too large for his head _ , and rolls his eyes.

“Come along Merlittlelilly. Don’t be such a stranger. Keep your feet on the ground and your head from the clouds!” 

He teaches Merlin how to laugh so the birds don’t fly about and how to swim in a lake where the fish leave them be. He doesn’t mind the way Merlin’s skin shimmers. “My little Merlilly,” he laughs and touches pearlescent skin. 

“You glow in the moon, you know. ‘Cept for your eyes. Those belong to the sun.” Will says it as he rubs mud beneath Merlin’s chin, as he tackles him into the cow’s dung. He plays with Merlin like he’s nothing fragile. Like he’s just a lad running barefoot through the thistle. 

He doesn't ever mind Merlin’s feet are never ribboned. And when the bigger boys circle them in the hay stacks, when their meaty hands wrap around Will’s narrow neck, it is  _ Merlin _ who lifts the wagon high above his head. 

When asked later, he has a hard time remembering exactly how the wood had splintered, or which boy had cracked his skull against the rocks. But he and Will had stuck to their stories of sprites and fae and boys with too much liquor.

Mother moves their little shack farther out, but Merlin likes the quiet. 

 

\---

 

He settles into his new skin, just in time to be sent away. His mother doesn’t cry, but Merlin can feel her tears at his elbows. He knows what this is, why she has done this. So he holds her tight, and he rocks her the way she once cradled him, and he hums lullabies in her ears that come from another land. 

“You never were mine to keep,” she says. “But you were the best gift.” She strokes his cheeks and taps his chin. “No one thought you’d keep that first winter. So frail, with toothpicks poking through your chest.”

He doesn’t answer, because he isn’t sure he is allowed to. And then she says, “Do they love him? Was he well treated? Did he get better?” 

He nods and walks away. 

He’s in a new kingdom within a wee; one that makes his bones rattle and his skin blister. So much of this castle means to melt the flesh off his muscles. He’s agitated, and energy fizzes and pops about in his hips and he thinks  _ there must be somewhere else. _

But then a boy his age and younger stands before him with a grin from beyond the edge of the world. The boy’s eyes, the blue that screeches about his head, suddenly doesn’t seem so overwhelming and he think  _ this is why they are beautiful to us. _

 

\---

 

Merlin was born royal, but abandoned and forgotten. He was sacrificed to a mother whose tears touched cold hearts and whose honey cakes were sweet on the tongues. He was left to a world with no love for his kind. 

But a woman with sun-blue eyes held him close and a boy with earth turned hair taught him to contain himself. And now, a prince with hair like a crown will teach him to  _ own _ this foreign land. 

Everything in him knows that a kiss is improper here. A kiss would be improper at the edge of the world. But he has not truly felt at home since he awoke in an itchy hay cot and this stupid arrogant  _ child _ settles him.

He kisses chapped lips and his skin belongs to him once more.


End file.
